


The Cure for a Restless Night

by maddestofthemad



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Happy, brotp to the max, coran wants a friend too shiro, happy shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 18:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7584622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maddestofthemad/pseuds/maddestofthemad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I got a request for a happy!Shiro fic with a dosing of Coran, if possible, so here you are!  Coran knocks into Shiro wandering the halls late at night and decides to share something with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cure for a Restless Night

With a regretful sigh, Shiro set aside the tablet he had been reading from, the screen now blank.  It had been an interesting read, though not particularly to his liking.  Pidge had told the others she had a small library of books on her computer, for any of them that were interested.  Lance scoffed that he had better things to do than read, and wandered off.  Keith had politely declined.  Hunk, predictably, had asked if she had any cookbooks, and was disappointed when she said no.  But Shiro hadn't been able to resist at least looking through her collection.  Most of it was advanced books on technology, engineering, and space travel, but there were a few adventure novels that had piqued his interest a little.  Unfortunately he had chewed through them all in less than a week, in the early hours of morning when he couldn't sleep.

He had just finished the last one.

"Now what?" he wondered aloud.  Swinging his legs over the side of his bed he stood, palming open the door and heading out into the halls.  At the very least he could get his patrol in, and maybe ease some of the restlessness that had been itching at him for days.  With a slight grimace as stiff muscles protested, Shiro began an easy jog through the corridor.

No one else ever seemed to be up at this hour, or at least not out in the halls as Shiro often found himself.  Ever since the incident with the crystal, as well as the infiltration prior to that back on the planet, Shiro had taken to the odd patrol here and there.  Even the vastness of space didn't negate the chance for trouble, in his mind.  Besides, it gave him something to do on those nights he couldn't sleep, especially now that he had nothing left to read.

"Shiro?"

He nearly tripped over his own feet as his body jerked to react to the sudden appearance of Coran, peaking around a corner ahead, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Coran - you startled me," Shiro came to a halt, his breathing only slightly heavier due to his activities.  How long had he been jogging the halls already?  Was it morning?  It was so easy to lose track of time these days.

"What are you doing out at this hour?" Coran asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.  

"I - uh - well," Shiro stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.  "I finished this book Pidge loaned me and couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd go for a jog.  Y'know, best cure for a sleepless night and all."  He smiled sheepishly.

Coran raised an eyebrow, "Books, eh?  I was quite the scholar when I was your age!  Always had my nose in a book!  'Coran,' they used to say, 'couldn't tear that boy away from his books if a pack of wild beasts were stampeding in his direction!'" Coran chuckled.  "You know," he turned, walking down the hall and Shiro hurried to follow, "running about the halls all night is all well and good, but I can't help but wonder if there's something else you'd rather be doing."

"Someone needs to patrol," Shiro replied, moving up beside Coran.  "Where are we going?"

"I have spent the weeks since we left the planet making adjustments to our security protocols - I'm good for more than cleaning stasis pods, you know!"  

"Coran - that's not what I mea - "

"I understand your restlessness, Shiro, but I assure you these halls are safe for the moment."  Coran smiled, and Shiro couldn't help but respond in kind.  There was something about Coran's personality that made people want to smile for him, and even Shiro was not immune.  "Besides, wouldn't you much rather look around in here?"  With a dramatic flourish, Coran palmed open the door beside them and bowed Shiro inside.

Shiro, for his part, was stunned speechless.

When Shiro imagined a library, he didn't think of physical books stacked to the ceiling.  No, technology had come so far, and space was such a commodity, that libraries were almost all digital back on Earth, and those that weren't were more like museums than places to curl up and escape into someone else's story.  In the old movies he watched with his family as a child he had never had context for the cozy armchairs and steaming cups of some delectable beverage that people sipped with a look of contentment on their faces.  It just wasn't seen any more.

Or at least, it wasn't seen on Earth.

Shiro stepped forward, Coran's voice fading to the back of his awareness as he reached out, gently brushing the spine of an actual hand bound novel.  He looked up and around, his heart doing a strange rhythm in his chest.  The room was massive - the size of the bridge or possibly bigger - and every wall was packed with shelves, filled to the brim with a plethora of books so variently colorful it made his eyes sting.

" - llura has always loved reading, she used to curl up in that chair with her father - " Coran was still speaking, and Shiro found his gaze going to a chair the likes of which he had only imagined.  It was more of a nest than anything, large enough for himself, Coran, and quite possibly Hunk to all curl up in and still be comfortable.  The mental image made him smile.  Shiro slowly turned in a circle, taking in the vast expanse of worlds around him, and found that his smile didn't fade, and that only made him grin wider.

"Coran," he turned, interrupting the man as he continued to describe with great enthusiasm the many memories he had of this place, "thank you.  This is...I didn't even know this was here."

"Ah, well.  You've been so busy lately it's no wonder you never found your way to this quiet little nook.  This castle does have it's secrets!  But you're here, and it's yours to peruse whenever you like!"

Shiro bit his lip, "Are you sure I'm not invading your space?"  

Coran turned to face Shiro, and Shiro found himself startled at the honest look of open hope on the man's face.  Even in the hell they had all faced, Coran always seemed to have an edge of excitement to him that gave the rest of the team a boost.  The expression he faced Shiro with now wasn't lacking that, but it felt more real this time.

"Invasion implies you are not wanted.  And that, my dear fellow, is most certainly not the case!"  Coran smiled, "There is a vast array of knowledge and stories here.  My particular favorites are off on the opposite side of the library.  Would you like me to show them to you?"

"I'd like that," Shiro said.

"What kind of books do you like, Shiro?" Coran asked as they made their way across the room.

"Anything with a happy ending," Shiro replied with feeling.  

Coran nodded in agreement.  "There are many of those here - Allura's father was partial to those kinds of stories as well.  Ah, here we are."  

They were stopped in front of a section of well worn, but well kept, books.  Shiro crouched down to take a closer look at a deep blue book near the bottom.  He tilted his head to the side to read the title.

"Altea:  The First Millenium!  A necessity for every child of Altea!  I remember fondly the day I was given my own copy.  My grandfather - who built this castle - would find me late at night pouring over the pages of history.  He would stay up for hours talking to me about the first kings and their battles.  My favorite nights were when we spoke of nothing but history for hours."  Coran sighed wistfully.

Shiro gently pried the book from the shelf, letting it fall open in his hands.  He frowned when he realized the problem he was going to run in to in this room.  

"Um, Coran.  All of these books are in Altean - I can't read Altean."  Shiro bit his lip.  He didn't want to go back to the cold tablet in his quarters.  The thought of curling up in that nest of a chair, with a real book in his hands - he wanted that.

"Oh, that's no problem, I'll teach you!" Coran replied, "it's a simple enough language when you really get down to it I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time!  And what better way to learn the history of a people than by reading what they wrote in their own language!"

Shiro blinked, straightening with the book in his hands.  For a moment he was startled to realize that the reason his heart was beating so quickly wasn't from his earlier run, that the smile on his lips wasn't forced, and that the thought of spending an evening chatting with Coran about the history of Altea sounded  _fun_.  For a moment he stood there, staring at Coran, dumbfounded at how this man had, with one simple gesture, brought a word back into Shiro's vocabulary that he had forgotten.  A strange feeling bubbled inside Shiro's chest and a shaky laugh emerged, growing stronger as Shiro felt the endless tension in his shoulders ease ever so slightly.  "I'd love that, Coran," he managed to reply through his laughter.

"Ah, there now.  That's what I like to see!"  Coran reached out, clapping Shiro on the shoulder, "Come on, lets go take a look at some books to get you started.  Pretty soon we'll have you spouting Altean limericks like a master!"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The following morning, when Allura awoke, she decided to make a trip down to the library before breakfast.  As the door opened, she stared at the figure sprawled in the chair in the corner.  A soft smile curved Shiro's lips, his face more relaxed than she had ever seen it.  Clutched in his hands was a copy of one of her favorite childhood stories, one her father used to read to her late at night, curled together in the very chair Shiro now occupied.  Smiling to herself, Allura turned and left, closing the door behind her, letting Shiro sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> When I first wrote this I was honestly worried that this wasn't 'happy' enough, as I had been asked for. However, in running it by another friend and rereading it myself, we both came to the conclusion that, this is post-kidnapping for him, and he is in rough shape emotionally, and happy doesn't necessarily come easy to him. So this is him as happy as he'll let himself be at this point. In that way, I feel that I stayed true to the character while still fulfilling the prompt. And really, I think that Shiro would be quite happy with this, as it seems to be the little things that are getting him through.


End file.
